The present invention relates in general to cooling units using a plurality of elongated chill elements for rapidly chilling beverage containers and beverages retained therein, and in particular to self-contained closed-loop cooling units that use an array of elongated chill elements for rapidly chilling different sizes of closed beverage containers or the like or other objects of different sizes placed therein.
Many beverages such as soda pop, juice, beer, wine and others are preferably consumed cold, ideally around 45xc2x0 F. or even cooler, for many beverages, or slightly chilled, such as between 50xc2x0 F. to 60xc2x0 F., for certain wines. Ambient temperatures are typically warmer than this, so consumers typically cool the beverage by placing the beverage container and beverage in a refrigerator or a cooler full of ice, by adding ice directly to the beverage, or by placing the beverage container and beverage into a freezer for a short period of time. Cooling a beverage container and beverage within a refrigerator or cooler full of ice generally takes several hours, which is often more time than a consumer is willing to wait. Adding ice directly to a beverage often is not desired by the consumer. Placing a beverage container and beverage in a freezer hastens the cooling process, but this method has a host of problems associated with it. For example, a warm beverage container and beverage placed within a typical freezer still requires twenty minutes or more to cool them to the desired temperature, the beverage does not cool uniformly, and it often may freeze in whole or in part if left in the freezer too long.
In order to address these concerns, numerous efforts have been made and practical methods developed for rapidly chilling beverages stored within a beverage container. In general, the rapid cooling of products of various types has been known for very long time and has seen extensive use in industry for the last few decades, especially in connection with the rapid freezing of consumable food products sold in the frozen food section of most large grocery stores.
There are a number of patents directed to chilling food and beverages during processing in which the product to be chilled is passed by a conveyor or other similar transport apparatus through a cooling/freezing chamber wherein the temperature of the product is reduced. Examples of such systems and methods are disclosed in the following U.S. Patents:
U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,153,742, 3,238,736 3,427,820 4,127,008 4,157,650 4,367,630 4,739,623 5,218,826 5,551,251
However, these rapid cooling systems are generally very large and bulky. Further, due to their size and due to ventilation requirements, they have no real application in commercial establishments such as kitchens and restaurants or in institutional settings, such as college dormitories or nursing homes, much less inside of normal residential homes.
Yet another class of devices disclosed in some patents are dedicated to open loop cooling systems that cool containers for individual products such as an individual beverage can or bottle. At least the following U.S. patents disclose such devices:
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,054,037 4,640,101 5,115,940 5,189,890 5,287,707 5,845,499 5,845,501
This class of individual cooling containers, however, involves the use of pressurized cryogenic gas or other refrigerant stored in a pressure vessel. When the pressurized refrigerant is released from the pressure vessel, the solid or liquid compressed refrigerant evaporates and thereby cools the beverage container or cooling apparatus. These devices have several disadvantages, such as the compressed refrigerant requires refilling after discharge and environmentally unfriendly refrigerants may be released to the atmosphere. Additionally, many inventions in this class require complex and expensive beverage container designs, and have the safety risk of bodily contact with the super-cold released cryogens.
There is also another class of devices disclosed in some patents that are dedicated to relatively small-size, closed-loop cooling systems, which could be used in commercial and residential environments, and that are capable of relatively rapidly cooling beverage containers or other objects of different sizes. Examples of U.S. patents that disclose concepts for utilizing the closed-loop refrigeration system for a beverage cooler include the following:
U.S. Pat. No. 6,035,660 discloses a refrigerated beverage mug having a closed-loop mechanical refrigeration system powered by an onboard power unit. The power unit includes a pressurized gas such as nitrogen or carbon dioxide that is released to the atmosphere as it powers the mechanical refrigeration system. The mechanical refrigeration system cycles refrigerant through a standard refrigeration cycle, which includes cycling the refrigerant through an evaporator section within the annular walls of the mug in a preferably spiral configuration.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,007,248 discloses a closed-loop, beverage-cooling device integrated into a vehicle air-conditioning system. The device is mounted into a vehicle and includes a refrigeration loop integrally connected with the vehicle air-conditioning system that circulates air-conditioning refrigerant through the device, and provides for evaporation of the refrigerant within the device, thereby cooling the device and the beverage retained therein.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,711,099 discloses a portable, closed-loop, beverage-cooling device specifically designed to cool a beverage stored within a standard 12-ounce can. The device uses a standard refrigeration cycle, preferably including refrigerant R-12, and it has an evaporator formed into a spiral coil that receives a 12-ounce can therein. The spiral coil evaporator has limited flexibility wherein one end may be rotated counterclockwise relative to the other, thereby expanding the coil for insertion or removal of a can.
Although a number of relatively small closed-loop cooling systems have been disclosed in the foregoing patents, the disclosed systems have several shortcomings. Specifically, there is still a need for a closed-loop rapid chilling system or unit that is able to cool containers of various shapes and sizes, that is portable, and that does not require the release of compressed gas or refrigerant to the atmosphere. No suitable system or cooling unit has been shown for quickly cooling a variety of closed beverage containers, such as 12-ounce beverage cans, 20-ounce beverage bottles, and 10-ounce juice bottles. Also, there is a need for a self-contained system or other portable system that can be readily used by consumers with very little training to quickly cool a variety of beverages retained in containers of different sizes.
It is therefore a first major object of the present invention to provide an essentially self-contained closed-loop cooling unit or system and method of rapidly and efficiently cooling closed beverage containers of varying sizes and shapes in commercial and/or residential environments. A related object is to provide a chill element cooling unit in a relatively small enclosure that is capable of receiving and holding different size containers to minimize the time required to chill the beverage therein to a desired temperature substantially below room temperature.
A second major object of the present invention is to provide a self-contained closed-loop chill element cooling unit or system that, while sophisticated internally, includes a simple-to-operate user""s control panel and an essentially foolproof method for efficiently operating the cooling system, even though beverage containers (or objects) of different sizes are to be cooled inside the same overall enclosure. A related object is to provide the user with a clear and memorable visible indication and/or aural message that the cooling process is underway. Another object is to provide a system that can readily used in restaurant kitchens or in convenience stores.
A third major object of the present invention is to provide a self-contained closed loop chill element cooling unit or system that selectively modifies the cooling cycle according to the type of beverage container and beverage to be cooled, the initial temperature of the beverage, and other factors, in order to maximize the cooling rate of the beverage. A related object is to provide a cooling system that takes advantage of natural convection currents within a beverage to improve the cooling process. Another object is to provide a cooling system that takes advantage of mechanical or other mixing to improve the cooling process.
To address the aforementioned problems and achieve one or more of the foregoing objects, there are provided novel self-contained closed-loop cooling units or systems and novel methods for carrying out chill element cooling tasks with such cooling units. In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention, the chill element cooling system is a self-contained closed-loop cooling unit comprising a barrel chiller, a system enclosure for supporting and retaining the cooling system components, a hyper-chilled coolant circuit, a refrigerant circuit, and a controller.
In general, the barrel chiller portion of the cooling system receives a beverage container and absorbs heat therefrom during a cooling cycle. The barrel chiller is preferably located on top of the system enclosure and includes a plurality of chill elements, a plurality of keystone spacers, a plurality of coil springs, an ejection device, and a housing structure. The chill elements surround the beverage container in a parallel tubular array configuration resembling the staves of a barrel. A plurality of spacers attached to each chill element orient each respective element relative to the adjacent elements, and discourage elements from clinging to one another as a result of potential frost buildup between elements. The chill elements are retained in a barrel configuration by coil springs that bias the chill elements toward one another in the tubular array. A housing structure supports the chill element array and attaches the barrel chiller to the system enclosure. The housing structure may fixedly attach the barrel chiller to the enclosure, or may permit horizontal and vertical rotation. An ejection device is preferably attached to the housing structure at a rear portion of the chill element array, coaxial with the array, for urging a beverage container out of the array at the end of a cooling cycle.
During operation, the chill elements surround a beverage container and remove heat therefrom by transferring heat to a hyper-chilled coolant flowing through each of the chill elements in parallel. Each chill element connects to the coolant circuit at one end through a feed line, and at an opposing end through a return line. The coolant is circulated by a pump that draws the coolant from an insulated coolant reservoir located within the enclosure, pumps it through the barrel chiller, and returns it to the insulated reservoir. The coolant in the insulated reservoir is maintained in a hyper-chilled state by a refrigeration circuit also preferably also located within the enclosure.
The controller is preferably mounted on the side of the barrel chiller, but may be located on top of the enclosure or any other location that provides easy access for an operator. The controller coordinates the cooling process by receiving inputs from the operator and from sensors located throughout the unit and, based upon these inputs, starts, controls, and stops the cooling process in accordance with design parameters. The controller provides the cooling unit the advantage of altering the cooling process by selectively turning different chill elements on or off as necessary for speeding up or slowing down the cooling rate, for inducing natural convection currents within the beverage, or for other reasons. The controller may selectively turn on or off each chill element by using of a solenoid valve located at the coolant feed or return portion of the selected chill element, or in an alternative embodiment, the operator may selectively turn a chill element on or off by using a manual valve such as a gate valve, butterfly valve, or the like located at the coolant feed or return portion of the selected chill element.
The cooling system of the present invention provides many advantages for rapid cooling of beverage containers and the like, such as the flexibility to accept various sized beverage containers and similarly shaped objects. Specifically, the coil springs allow the diameter of the tubular array to expand and therefore to accommodate larger sized objects. In addition, the ability of the controller to selectively control coolant flow through each of the elements, and to control the overall coolant flow rate by controlling the pump, provides many elections for improving the cooling cycle.
Additionally, the use of a coolant circuit in addition to a refrigeration circuit greatly reduces the cooling time of a beverage or other object retained within the cooling unit, and requires less refrigeration capacity than a system using only a refrigeration circuit. The use of a coolant at very low or even cryogenic temperatures produces rapid cooling of the beverage because the heat transfer rate is proportional to the temperature difference between the coolant and the beverage. For example, a coolant at xe2x88x9280xc2x0 F. circulating through the cooling unit is expected to be capable of cooling a beverage in a conventional cylindrical 12-ounce aluminum can initially at 75xc2x0 F. down to a target temperature of 45xc2x0 F. in a minute or less. Furthermore, the cooling unit having both a coolant circuit and a refrigeration circuit requires a much smaller refrigeration circuit than is necessary to cycle refrigerant only at very low temperatures through the chill elements of a similar cooling unit. This is because it requires less refrigeration capacity to maintain a coolant stored within an insulated reservoir at very low temperatures than it does to produce sufficient refrigerant at very low temperatures on demand to rapidly cool a beverage.
Overall, the present invention provides for small, easy to use, versatile, highly efficient, closed-loop, multiple chill element cooling units and related methods for rapidly chilling beverages retained in beverage containers.
There has been outlined, rather broadly, some of the more important features of the invention in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are, of course, additional features of the invention that will be described hereinafter, which will form elements of the subject matter of the claims appended hereto. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception upon which this disclosure is based may be readily utilized as a basis for the designing of other structures, methods and systems for tearing out the several purposes of the present invention. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalent constructions in so far as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.